A green trail others must now follow

If ever there was an example of people power, the green community movement is it. Small communities and groups throughout the UK are getting together to reduce their carbon footprint, become more sustainable and - particularly in these days of economic downturn - save themselves some money.

But because these groups are working locally, it has been impossible to say how many of them are in existence and what their combined muscle is. So to help them share their experiences and save them from reinventing the wheel, the Energy Saving Trust launched Green Communities, building on its work with communities over the last few years. The scheme provides a range of free training days, newsletters, networking opportunities and help with funding among its services.

At the moment, more than 3,000 groups throughout the UK have signed up as members. In total, these groups represent a population of about a million people, as each group is typically working in a community of between 100 and 500 people. But this is probably just a small part of the total green movement in the UK.

To spread the word further and recognise the remarkable achievements of some groups, Green Communities has just launched what will be an annual set of awards. Four communities and one outstanding individual have been chosen in the inaugural selection of Green Community Heroes. They range in size from Urchfont, a Wiltshire village of 400 houses, to Birmingham's Faith and Climate Change Project, which believes it represents half the city, or more than 500,000 people (see panels).

These winners are, like most groups that grow out of the community, relaxed, creative and informal. So for example, children are involved in several aspects of these schemes. The Urchfont project tries to get the young involved in doing "eco-maps", or energy audits, of their homes. And the Whittington and Fisherwick Environment Group is aiming to make the primary school in this Staffordshire town a net generator of energy.

Ben Todd, executive director of the Arcola Theatre, another of the winners, explains why the informal approach is so important - and why the Green Communities Heroes awards are so helpful. "Our challenge is to change the behaviour of billions of people," he says. "But the rational approach is never going to change behaviour. We need a cultural shift. This award recognises that."

Todd says the important thing is to get past the rational: "If you just stick to the rational and tell people to burn less petrol, it's not going to work: it won't make it to the top of their lists, past things like 'chasing that boy or girl' or paying the mortgage."

But the winners of these awards and the leaders of other successful community groups combine their creativity and apparently relaxed approach with discipline and high levels of professionalism. Groups are typically led by a central core of three to five people, according to the Energy Saving Trust. Many of them will give huge amounts of their time to administering the projects and even to getting themselves trained to do the work better. Green Communities offers eight different kinds of training programmes, all of which are free, and all of which are popular with volunteers. These cover issues such as accessing funding and working with local government.

In fact, the leading lights in these groups can work so hard that one danger is that sometimes they take on too much and burn themselves out.

However, most teams that are sustainable will find ways of spreading the work and helping their most active members to become a source of inspiration to others. In Birmingham, for example, the Quakers have acted as a role model to other faiths. Fortunate to have professional architects regularly attending their meetings, the Quakers have even constructed a new sustainable meeting house.

It is no coincidence that at least three of the winners in 2009 have been in contact with each other: they are clearly thinking along the same lines. Rob Hopkins, winner of the outstanding individual award, is one of the instigators of the Transition Town network. Both the Arcola Theatre and the Urchfont climate friendly community group have been in touch with this network.

There are now 250 locations following the Transition Town model that Hopkins and his associates have created to make towns as resilient as possible to climate change and rising oil prices.

If Hopkins is proved correct in his environmental analysis, he could be as famous as any national, or even international, politician within a decade.

He believes that politics must now start working from the bottom up, as well as from the top down. "The government is really going to struggle to do what it wants to do unless it has engaged communities on board," he says.

The United Nations Climate Change conference, starting on 7 December in Copenhagen, looks set to prove Hopkins right. Last month, US president Barack Obama said he thought the Copenhagen conference would fail in its aim of producing a new legal contract for participating countries.

What will, however, spur on politicians to get a delayed agreement will probably be the realisation of what it means to ordinary people. If people care enough to change their own behaviour then they will probably want change at national and international levels, too. So when the Quakers build a new solar-heated meeting house, or even when the young playwrights at Arcola drink elderflower juice rather than Coca-Cola, they are sending a broader message that reducing their carbon footprint is becoming ever more important to them.

For more information about Green Community Heroes, and how the Energy Saving Trust can help, sign up free support by calling 08448 480077, or log on to energysavingtrust.org.uk/community